


wild flower petals

by skatzaa



Category: Seven Kingdoms Trilogy - Kristin Cashore
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Drunken Shenanigans, F/F, Fire and Clara Witness a Wedding, Friends With Benefits, Marriage customs, Sort Of, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 06:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: It was on one of their little outings that Fire first caught a glimpse of one of the famed weddings of King’s City.





	wild flower petals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarlightSeas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSeas/gifts).



> Annabel, thanks for talking headcanons with me!! I loved thinking about how weddings may have worked in the Dells. And thanks to Syd, as always, for being my sounding board <3 this is going to be part one of two (or three, depending)
> 
> Not edited because I'm lazy. If you notice a typo please feel free to point it out.

It was on one of their little outings that Fire first caught a glimpse of one of the famed weddings of King’s City.

She and Clara stood shoulder-to-shoulder in Clara’s favorite bakery, because Fire had commented the night before that she truly loved pastries, but hadn’t eaten many since arriving in the city some weeks earlier. Rather than send someone to order some to be delivered to the castle or request that the castle kitchens make something, Clara had seized the opportunity to continue her campaign of making Fire fall in love with the capital.

Fire smiled as Clara pointed out the carrot cake—the best in all of the Dells, if she were to be believed—and didn’t fiddle with her headscarf, despite her nerves. Her guards—a small company today, mixed in as they were with Clara’s personal retinue—had been forced to wait outside, as the bakery was too small to accommodate them all. If asked, Fire would still protest their presence in her life and the resulting lack of freedom, but she was forced to admit, if only to herself, that she did feel safer with the lot of them only a few steps away.

The back of her neck prickled. Someone was watching her, and it didn’t take Fire’s powers to know that whoever it was likely wasn’t friendly; and if they weren’t friendly, they weren’t harmless either.

Fire clenched her hands into fists to keep from reaching up to check her headscarf. At her side, Clara continued to rhapsodize about the bakery’s frosting, but she also shifted to block most of Fire’s body with her own in a movement so casual it couldn’t be anything other than deliberate.

Clara touched the tips of her fingers to Fire’s lower back, and Fire forced herself to relax. She would be safe with Clara, and Musa and the rest of her guard were only a thought away.

Fire’s attention was pulled from the display of breads by a commotion on the street outside. Her heart leapt into her throat in a moment; she hadn’t sensed anything, but she also hadn’t been monitoring her surroundings closely. What if—

She and Clara turned as one to stare out the wide windows that lined the front of the shop, Clara’s hand securely wrapped around Fire’s elbow.

Nothing was wrong, that much was immediately made clear: their guards stood together, talking and laughing amongst themselves, but they had oriented their bodies to face the street, where a large party was passing by.

They were nearly blinding in the afternoon sunlight, dressed in a riot of colors and exuding so much happiness that, even with her shields, Fire found herself leaning into Clara’s side under the onslaught of it.

It was a wedding party, one of the wonders Cansrel would tell her about in his stories, when the gray and drizzling world of the northern Dells beyond the stone walls of their house left much to be desired. The beauty of a wedding in King’s City had been one of the few things Cansrel and Brocker agreed upon.

Children led the way, scattering wild flower petals as they ran, laughing, across the cobblestones. The guests had donned their best and brightest clothing that was as jarring to look at as it was beautiful. Fire saw more than one guest sporting the monster fur wigs that were so popular in the city. One man wore a necklace strung with shells of unusual colors—whether there actually was monsters in the sea was still widely debated, but that hadn’t stopped the trend of painting shells leftover from dinner to look like monsters.

Fire’s eyes were drawn to the bride atop a massive black stallion that could put Brigan’s mare to shame. She wore a dress made of the most brilliantly purple fabric Fire had ever seen, and around her shoulders was a blue shawl, the traditional wedding gift in the southern Dells. She rode without a saddle, only a pad, and it took Fire a moment longer to realize it was made of monster feathers, iridescent in the sun.

The bride’s new wife led the stallion. Her tunic and trousers were the same shade of blue as her wife’s shawl, and her own purple shawl was wrapped around her hair and neck, similar to Fire’s own headscarf. As Fire watched, the woman on the ground tipped her head back to smile at her wife.

The guests, happy to have an audience in the form of the guards, began an impromptu dance, circling around the couple and their horse. One of Clara’s guards pulled a small flute from somewhere on their person and began to play a cheerful tune while the rest of the guards sang along.

At Fire’s side, Clara hummed along. It was a song popular in the city, for Fire didn’t know the words, but that did nothing to lessen her happiness. She freed her elbow from Clara’s grasp and wrapped her arm around Clara’s back. They leaned against one another and watched the wedding party continue on its way.

Fire knew they had already missed the ceremony to bind the two women together, when the shawls were exchanged and the candles extinguished. Someone would have already sung or played the luck-giving song, but Fire resolved to extinguish a candle for the couple herself, once they returned to the castle; they deserved a long and happy life together. 

She knew what Clara would say, if Clara knew what she was thinking; Fire, more than anyone else in the kingdom at that moment, had the ability to help protect their happiness, at least from outside threats. With Fire’s abilities, they could cut down on the number of tragedies across the kingdom, because they would better be able to defend against those who opposed the crown. 

Fire watched until the last of the wedding guests had disappeared from view, and it was only then that she removed her arm from Clara’s waist. Soon after, they left the bakery and continued through the city, eventually returning to the castle, where Clara left her in order to attend to her usual duties. Fire did light and extinguish a candle for the young couple, but she couldn’t shake the wistfulness that clung to her mind like a particularly stubborn cobweb. Perhaps one day that would be her.

She wouldn’t hope too much, though. 


End file.
